GeForce GTX 580 - Fermi Done Right!
This is simultaneously the best kept along with the most mentioned secret in the industry today. The GeForce GTX 580 - it's been rumored being anything from dual GF104 chips to a different monster concoction of epic proportions. Just about all the rumors got it wrong until concrete evidence began to disseminate with the leaky pipes of the supply chain. Even then, since the specs started to bubble up to the surface, many people came for the wrong conclusions.It all started in the March/April time frame, around when NVIDIA launched their first part built about the well-hyped Fermi architecture, the GeForce GTX 480. Reviews were mixed; it absolutely was the easiest single GPU on the planet, with no hassle. It was a tessellation monster and its particular scaling in games, around 3-way SLI, was incredible. It was a fantastic advance for gaming computers.But it absolutely was also hot and loud. And that was compounded with the press using open-air test beds to test the GeForce GTX 480 - which meant the cardboard needed to do all the work in moving air over its hot components without the assistance of a well-ventilated chassis.In fact, it really is proven that the heat-stack vertical design in the MAINGEAR SHIFT custom built pc aided the GeForce GTX 480 in such a way that it turned out dramatically quieter in 3-way SLI than an identically configured Corsair 800D chassis which includes terrible airflow.The GeForce GTX 580 is really a fully-realized GF100 with all of 512 shaders. It has higher memory bandwidth, plus a higher core and shader clock. And it does doing this while drawing less power at half the Friv 2015 noise level. It's the last two features that can blindside everyone. Once the specs got through the rumor department to accepted, on-line "fact," everyone started to speculate that it would appear to be a hair dryer and draw the electricity generated by a flux capacitor. And require 1.21 jiggawatts and 88mph to return over time.In reality, NVIDIA created wicked vapor chamber a la ATI Radeon 2900XT, threw out your exposed gigantic heat pipes, and been able to tweak the look to attract less power, all while delivering around 20% more performance.I was sufficiently fortunate to get get to try out a MAINGEAR SHIFT with both 2-way GTX 480s and 2-way GTX 580s and will explain to you some numbers. So let's get going.By now you could have heard the numbers, and recently the rumored specs have solidified in to the truth. Yes, it's 512 shaders. Yes it can be clocked at 772MHz and delivers 192.4GB/s of bandwidth.Here's what we shoved in a SHIFT because of this test:Core i7 970 @ 4.135GHz 6GB of DDR3 2000MHz memory Rampage III Formula 128GB Crucial RealSSD C300 And all the remainder.In comparison to the Nvidia 480, the thing is that any where from a 10-20% surge in performance. There is plenty of reason to acquire excited about this though. Dual GTX 580's consumed about 40 watts less than dual GTX 480's. And you would not believe just how much quieter they are. It is striking. Unfortunately I didn't bring a SPL meter beside me, but NVIDIA reports it's about 50% quieter. I do not doubt for any second that is an accurate assessment. I was floored.Can the thing is Billy Mays selling this thing? "THE NEW NVIDIA GTX 580 IS FASTER. IT'S QUIETER. IT USES LESS POWER! AND BEST OF ALL, IT'S THE SAME PRICE. THAT'S RIGHT FOLKS, THE ALL NEW GTX 580 IS NOT ONLY THE WORLD'S FASTEST SINGLE GPU ON THE PLANET, IT'S THE SAME PRICE AS THE GTX 480! BUT WAIT, THERE'S MORE. BUY THE GEFORCE GTX 580 AND GET FREE(!) SUPPORT FOR CUDA. FOR 3D VISION. FOR PHYSX! ALL OF THESE COME BUNDLED IN THE NEW NVIDIA GTX 580 GRAPHICS CARD!"OK, so maybe it's only me. But in either case, this bad boy is replacing the GTX 480 in my book, ASAP. EVGA offers a Superclocked version for all of us who still want "MOAR POWAH!"